Tragic Villains

The redemption of ultimate evil? Star Wars comes to mind. You sympathize with a villain who willingly chooses to act for the greater good instead of his/her own selfish gain. It's a hard road to write; I'm working on a fantasy two-book series where the MC starts as the ultimate heroine, becomes the ultimate villain, and has to find her way all the way back to the beginning. It IS hard--if you want it to be credible. You can't have the character wake up some morning covered in the dried blood of his/her enemies and decide "I think I'll be good now" a la Xena.

For example, Darth Vader's redemption in RotJ was staged purposely to give the character that single moment of decision--when he looks from the evil face of the Emperor to the sizzling, writhing form of his son. Now that we have the first three episodes added to our knowledge base, that moment is more easily defined. Ask yourself: what is it that makes Vader turn against his mentor and kill himself in order to protect his son? What brief glimpse of humanity does he see? Does he imagine his dead wife? Does he remember his own moment of decision in his youth, when he could choose to kill Palpatine or wound Mace Windu? He failed in his decision; Luke succeeded in his. As a result of this, and Luke's unswerving conviction that there still is some good in him, Vader chooses to act for the greater good--sacrificing himself to bring the tyranny of the Emperor to an end.

Does that make sense? Hope so. Good luck.

A great villain doesn't see himself as the villain. If you ask him, he'll tell you that he is the hero. Make him as well-rounded as your MC.

What does he want and why does he want it? It should be logical--something more than a comic book notion of "he wants to take over the world." The nature of his goal is what will put him in opposition to the MC and his objectives.

Give him something or someone that he loves, things that are important to him. Better still, give him other people who care about him. People (and critters) don't exist in a vacuum.

Take every question that you would answer for your MC and do the same for him.

Oh lord, read Banewrecker and Godslayer. If you don't root for the "villains" there is something seriously wrong with you. I WANT to be able to do that. I may spend a year studying those two books (and this is about the 10th time I've recommended them. I'm getting tedious, but I can't help it.)

But in the best, the evil is loyal to the end instead of turning to the good. When Tanoras remains faithful to the death to what others say is evil, I literally cried. When Ushahin called the "heroine" a bitch and wanted to kill her, I agreed.

Amazing.

In my current novel the villian is actually committing her atrocious acts in an attempt to revive her son who died. She's definitely a villian who sees herself as a good guy and I agree that most villians do. The key to a great villian I think is to make them be three dimensional. Make them be real and not cardboard cutouts. You do this by giving them motives other than "because they're evil." If you can make the reader understand them and thus sympathize with them despite their acts, I think that's an a great accomplishment.

The villain needs to absolutely, without a doubt, believe that what he/she is doing is RIGHT.

I often sympathise with my villains about as much as, and in some cases more than, my good guys. One thing that's extremely important to me is that the villain have moral motivations. I do write villains without them - the selfish sort and so on - but by far my favourite villains are the ones where you can not only see why they are doing something, you actually kind of agree with them. The ones who could very well be the protagonist, were the story just told from the other side.

DwayneA:
What defines a great villain you ultimately come to symapathize with instead of seeing as the scum of the universe?

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I agree with what JoNightshade said, but would add that it helps to understand why your villain believes that what he's doing is right.

DwayneA:
My villain is motivated by revenge. Throughout the story, he kills, destroys, and threatens to bring an entire kingdom to ruin, all in the name of justice for his slaughtered people and an attempt on his life in the past. He even claims to be justified in his actions because of this.

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See, I don't have a problem with revenge as a motivating factor, but (and I'm only speaking personally here, no offence intended), I want to understand why the villain thinks that whacking people is the only way he can attain revenge and see whether he ever questions what he's doing or whether he's thought about the long term effects.

It's a big problem (IMHO) in fantasy fiction that you get villains who are looking for Revenge or Total Domination or The Greater Good or The Love of a Good Woman/Man and there's nothing more to them than that.

Just to offer up my own villain for ridicule, in my WIP there are flashbacks showing, through the eyes of one of my MCs, the kind of things that have happened to the villain, which drive him on towards his plan and the actions of my MC (together with other characters) help him to work out how best to achieve his aims (which basically involve screwing over everyone for their own good). Basically, I want to show the humiliations and suffering he's endured so that when you find out what he's doing you can say: "Oh, I see why he's doing that. But it's still horrible. Bad villain, no cookie!"

MM

It all depends really. A lot of people equate the word 'villain' with 'evil', even though this is not true. My villain, the emporer of the Svartalfar is a 'villain' as such, but he is not an 'evil villain'. Long ago, his people were driven below the world by big-headed humans who thought they would become village heroes. Now the emporer wants what everyone wants- freedom. The first thing I do is create a problem, the reason why the villain wants to kill the hero or whatever, and think of what YOU would do if you wanted freedom, or wanted revenge for being killed, or wanted to help your friend who'd been captured by the hero, and apply it to the text. That way, the readers would probably be able to relate to the villain, and therefor won't see them as any more 'vile' than themselves. That is my best advice, and it usually works for me when I read someone's book. A villain that wants to destroy the world, including himself, just because he wears black and red, has long pointed nails, and is called an 'evil king' by anyone but his followers doesn't usually work for me.

DwayneA said:

What defines a great villain you ultimately come to symapathize with instead of seeing as the scum of the universe? In an upcoming fantasy novel I'm planning, the main antagonist is such a villain, though I was wondering how to truly make him memorable. Also, has anyone here created any of these types of villains?

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I've remarked on my villainous methods before. The fact is that I seem to prefer to start my villains and MC in the same pot of scum. The MC then is the more deviant personage and slowly becomes less evil by failing to do things right. I'm sure the evil-doers are doing things right, the question is what goes wrong to make somebody less evil? In this way the MC is both the tragic villain and the oafish hero and the scum of the universe while the villainous villain is just somebody who does the right things all the time until some scumbag hero blows his head off. But there are always more people doing the right things and so the tragic villainous, scumbag hero has to come to terms with where he is in the cosmic scheme of things. Not all that easy. You can't just kill everybody who is doing the right things, right? I guess I've been heavily influenced by Iain M. Banks in all this, though without the standard of "The Culture" to guide any of my characters.

Sokal, I didn't understand any of that. *looks puzzled* what goes wrong to make somebody less evil How is someone becoming less evil "going wrong?"

I am having a problem with my current villain. I think of him as a kind of Stalinesque type. But I have a hard time understanding that kind of motivation. He takes over a country and pretty much kills or persecutes anyone who was loyal to the previous rulers.

I really want to humanize him, but it's very hard for me to see what motivates someone like that. I can say he still loves his wife and children. He isn't a monster, as such, in spite of the monsterous things he does. But I'm not sure I can do that without understanding what motivates someone like that, and I must admit I don't.

J.R Tomlin - It sounds like your "villain" loves his country above all things--enough that he understands the necessity of killing supporters of the previous regime in order to stabilize the political climate of the new. If he doesn't kill them, then innocents who only want an orderly and safe life will be endangered by the constant in-fighting. And if he doesn't take over the country, he has to trust other hands to run it which has already proven a bad bet due to corruption and ineptitude. What choice does he have but to do what he must? It is all for the love of country...




-Michelle

J. R. Tomlin said:

Oh lord, read Banewrecker and Godslayer. If you don't root for the "villains" there is something seriously wrong with you. I WANT to be able to do that. I may spend a year studying those two books (and this is about the 10th time I've recommended them. I'm getting tedious, but I can't help it.)

But in the best, the evil is loyal to the end instead of turning to the good. When Tanoras remains faithful to the death to what others say is evil, I literally cried. When Ushahin called the "heroine" a bitch and wanted to kill her, I agreed.

Amazing.

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Amen. Carey is brilliant.

J. R. Tomlin said:

Sokal, I didn't understand any of that. *looks puzzled* what goes wrong to make somebody less evil How is someone becoming less evil "going wrong?"

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As everyone likes to point out, the evil ones all think they are doing the right thing. Moreover, in a relatively nasty regime (here I'm thinking of things like all the Truth regimes in Banks' the Algebraist) being properly socialized in a nasty regime is still doing things the right way. And finally, there seems to be a lot more mentally wrong with my MCs than with their enemies (who are more or less "rational" stalinist or fascist types)...so how does a person deviate from doing the right thing and thus being evil?

I suppose in this I'm also influenced by the machine minds in Banks' culture novels where the more deviant and ancient and eccentric the machine mind becomes, the more the other machines rely on its moral judgement.
At the same time, some Banksian machine minds are quite ruthless which is the state to which my scumbag tragic villain hero MCs tend to move, though not very quickly.

I'd have to disagree with that. I think that the majority of villians are perfectly aware that they're not doing the right thing; in fact, they make conscious decisions to do so. If, as you state above, the evil ones all think they're doing the right thing it doesn't make them villians per se. It may make them stupid, or easily led, or criminally negligent but it doesn't confer the dark cloak of villiandom upon them.

mscelina said:

I'd have to disagree with that. I think that the majority of villians are perfectly aware that they're not doing the right thing; in fact, they make conscious decisions to do so. If, as you state above, the evil ones all think they're doing the right thing it doesn't make them villians per se. It may make them stupid, or easily led, or criminally negligent but it doesn't confer the dark cloak of villiandom upon them.

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Well, the dark cloak of villaindom falls on my scumbag tragic villainous hero, who knows he is not doing the right thing.

drachin8 said:

J.R Tomlin - It sounds like your "villain" loves his country above all things--enough that he understands the necessity of killing supporters of the previous regime in order to stabilize the political climate of the new. If he doesn't kill them, then innocents who only want an orderly and safe life will be endangered by the constant in-fighting. And if he doesn't take over the country, he has to trust other hands to run it which has already proven a bad bet due to corruption and ineptitude. What choice does he have but to do what he must? It is all for the love of country...




-Michelle

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I like your explanation, Michelle. And unlike anything Sokal says, I can actually understand it.

No offense meant, Sokal. I never understand a word you say. I feel the swish as it flies over my head. LOL

As many above have said the so called 'villain' believes him/herself to being do the right thing. More so they do not make themselves a villain, it is the good guys/social order that label them as a villain or evil mastermind. Often they are no more than a self interested individual who is prepared to do what others will not or has a different take on how to resolve some greater quandary or sees an opportunity for themselves: temptation is a terrible thing. Your villain can be ruthless, self centered, poorly dressed, narcissistic and have bad grammar but that just makes him plain annoying. But as soon as he ties the fair maiden to the railway track, well then he gets his diploma of evil.

Does the villain wanting his half-demon henchmen to kill her and steal her magic abilities count?

Sympathize with the villian? Why the hell would you want to do that? What's with this stupid surge of either Dark Lords or sympathetic villians? People can sympathize with someone just by you giving logical motives consistent with his character and then carrying them out. There's no real reason to, say, make him have a tragic past or anything.

A great villian is like any great character. No one can tell you what the hell makes a great villian, because there are different types of great villians. Make the person realistic, not black-and-white, but he can truly believe himself to be a villian. It's not like "Oh, he thinks he's right" means that the guy is a complex and realistic character---it means he'll probably be a mediocre villian you'll probably forget after you put down the book. There's a whole range of reasons that someone would be a villian.

So, what makes a great character?

Hard to say. Different tastes. Personally, I like my villians quirky and mysterious, but not obviously so. Just a guy who has little snippets of an interesting (but please, not tragic) past shown through off-side comments in dialogue, who has these little quirks. Great characters do great things as well---amazing scenes that'll leave the reader remembering the event and wanting to go back and re-read it when the chapter ends. The cold-blooded murder of one of the main characters. The last link of a devestating plan falling into place.

Memorable villians do memorable things, have memorable characteristics, and act in a memorable fashion. Who is going to remember a villian who basically just sends boring, basic cut-throats after the villian, or sends incompetent hirelings to kidnap her, or whatever. On the same note, who remembers the sympathetic villian that is ultimate just...another sympathetic villian? These are basic little things. A memorable villian can lull a person into a false sense of security and then strip everything away from the character in an instant. For instance: [spoilers for Tad William's The War of Flowers] Lord Hellebore resurrects a great dragon, of a forbidden art, with a four-hundred foot wingspan, and it completely incinerates the conference room of all his rivals gathered to form a peace treaty with him, turning them to ash and turning glass to liquid and killing hundreds of innocent people in the building. That's a pretty memorable scene.

[Spoilers over]

Seriously, I can't tell you how to make a villian. Just don't make him a basic villian that goes "I want the hero for so-and-so reason, go and kidnap the hero'.

My villain is a sociopath, utterly without any compassion for anyone but himself, but like many sociopaths, capable of being as charming as it takes to manipulate people. When I'm writing from his point of view, I go almost stream-of-consciousness, but not to create sympathy for him, but to highlight the radical disconnect between his actions and his thoughts. We do get a look of how he was himself manipulated by an even scummier sociopath when he was a young man, and his fury over being so exploited (once he comes to realize it) provides one of the plot twists that are necessary for the ending. I kind of lucked out on that; I threw it in just in case it would be useful later, and it's turned out to be pretty much essential.

I've made no effort whatsoever to make him sympathetic. He doesn't think what he's doing is right; for him, the question is so meaningless it has never crossed his mind. The only "right" for a sociopath is what fulfills their own personal goals. He will quite cheerfully do the right thing if it will put him further ahead. I don't think I'm being unrealistic in this. And for what it's worth, I've seen newsletters published by people who openly mocked concepts of right and social justice. The only question that interested them was "what's in it for me?" (Investing advice newsletters; talk about giving me the creeps.) These people did not care if what they were doing was right or wrong and were very conscious of not caring. To them it was supremely irrelevant. I venture to say that Stalin also did not conceive of himself as the good guy; he conceived of himself as a winner. Win at all costs.

Sorry for rambling a bit here, but my point is that villains are not just good guys seen from the other side of the fence, although an antagonist can very well be that. An antagonist is not necessarily a villain, but a villain is necessarily bad, at least in the central issues. Doesn't mean he can't love his kitten.

The villain in my NaNo is tragic - she's a psychotic murdering bitch, but it's not her fault. She was brought back to life and it sent her insane.

The tragedy is multiplied by the fact that her coming back to life was to be with her lover, and now that she's gone again, he has to live with the guilt.

Okay, so you want to move from good verses evil to the grey of human experience in character construction. Tonnes of good examples in literature. Essentially, the 'grey' villian in literature is the 'anti-hero', mal content or 'outsider'. We sympathize with them because they've been wronged in some way. They are 'villians' insofar as they seek to right this wrong through unethical means, violents, black mail etc.. By unethical, I mean they act in ways frowned upon by the social norms that underpin the context of the story.

kiwiauthor said:

Essentially, the 'grey' villian in literature is the 'anti-hero', mal content or 'outsider'. We sympathize with them because they've been wronged in some way. They are 'villians' insofar as they seek to right this wrong through unethical means, violents, black mail etc.. By unethical, I mean they act in ways frowned upon by the social norms that underpin the context of the story.

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Because heaven forbid we should judge them as being objectively bad...

Poor Hitler, if only he'd been born into a society that didn't frown on his methods. He would have been such a great guy.

I am all in favour of nuanced characters. Complexity, even moral complexity, is highly realistic. So are bad guys who are bad.